The Troublemaker - richest give just £240 a year to charity - while their wealth rises

Published Tue 10 Jul 2018

Issue No. 2612

The rich like to paint themselves as generous philanthropists - the opposite is true (Pic: Tim Sanders)

The richest people in Britain give the least amount of money to charities, new research has shown.

“The vast majority of wealthy people don’t give very much to charity at all,” said Cath Dovey, formerly of wealth management consultancy Scorpio Partnership.

Along with Matthew Bowcock, trustee of The Philanthropy Workshop, Dovey has initiated a drive to persuade the rich to part with more of their money.

They calculated that the median level of giving among the super-rich—those worth more than £10 million—is just £240 a year.

That means half give more than £240 a year and half give less.

The figure for people worth between £1 million and £10 million is just £500 a year. Yet the wealthiest 1,000 people in Britain increased their wealth by 10 percent last year. Bowcock and Dovey want the rich to double their total giving a year—to £4 billion. They warned that this is likely to be a tough ask.

Troublemaker doesn’t think that the answer to the world’s problems lies with charities.

And we want to take all the money from the rich, not just a tiny fraction of it.

Still, the figures show how those at the very top operate to look after themselves.

Over half of adults in Britain are too poor to pay their monthly credit card bills.

Credit report firm Equifax found that nearly three quarters of people with children aged between 12 and 16 can’t afford the bills.

Ruling means threat of delay to Daniel Morgan inquiry

The Metropolitan Police faces a multimillion-pound bill after judges ruled that three men jailed for the murder of Daniel Morgan were maliciously prosecuted by a corrupt officer.

The Court of Appeal said a claim by the Met that Detective Chief Superintendent David Cook had not acted maliciously in trying to fabricate a case was “like saying that Robin Hood was not guilty of theft”.

Jonathan Rees and brothers Glenn and Garry Vian came under investigation after the murder of Daniel Morgan in Sydenham, south east London, in 1987.

The case against the three men hinged on the evidence of a serious criminal, Gary Eaton, who claimed to have come on the scene shortly after Daniel was attacked.

However, the case collapsed after it emerged that Eaton had been “coached” by Cook in his desperation for the case to be solved. A judge ruled last year that Cook had “intended to pervert the course of justice”.

Rees and the Vians are now likely to share more than £1 million in damages.

The ruling threatens to further delay an inquiry into the murder, the failed police probes and claims of police corruption.

First announced in May 2013 and expected to take a year, it is not expected to report back until at least 2019.

Down with England in World Cup battle

The racist Democratic Football Lads Alliance (DFLA) posted a piece from the “DFLA council” on its Facebook page this week.

It celebrated England’s victories in the World Cup and used them to gloat at the left.

It read, “You’re not singing any more Mr Snowflake are you?

“The streets of England are rammed with men, women and painted faced children, three lions on their chests and a St George’s flag draped over their shoulders.

“Football has brought us back to being English.

“If those few can’t handle it, get off this Island and live like animals somewhere else.”

The liberals and some on the left who say backing England is anti-racist because of its black players are wrong.

Sharp rise in construction deaths

The figure for the previous year was 30, Health and Safety Executive figures show.

A total of 144 workplace deaths were recorded across all industries in 2017/18.

And the fatality injury rate for self-employed workers was nearly double that of workers.

MPs fear abuse on Twitter

MPs are being advised to leave Twitter to escape abuse, Tory Nadine Dorries has claimed.

She said parliament’s Health and Wellbeing Service was dishing out the advice.

Perhaps if MPs didn’t give the go-ahead for so many horrendous policies, they’d receive a little less abuse?

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